Nearly Identical
by Cassie Rose Taylor
Summary: "They might have only been nearly identical now, but that was okay with George as long as he knew he wasn't alone." When Fred dies in the Second Wizarding War, his twin is left alone for the first time in his life. A bottle from a stranger and a broken mirror help him cope. Rated T for alcohol consumption.


**Author's Note: just a warning ahead of time, I am so sorry. I got this idea in my head and it just wouldn't go away but it hurt my heart to write it. But I still hope you like it! Let me know if I got anything wrong. Reveiws encouraged but never required :) Quote at the end from Marcus Aurelius.**

If one of them looked into the mirror, they would see the other.

The same red hair, the same brown eyes, identical facial features that had run in their family for more years than they could keep track of. They were both left handed, a rare thing in their home, and their laughs were so alike that not even their mother could tell them apart. They had a fine appreciation for good pranks and corny jokes, and had held fast to dreams of escaping their poor life one day, with each other, obviously.

Yes, Fred and George Weasley were identical.

Well... _nearly_ identical.

They were slight differences, little things that nobody noticed. Like how Fred liked sugar in his coffee, but George preferred a spoonful of honey. Or how George kept his fingernails just slightly longer than his twins, whose were always bitten. There was also how Fred's handwriting tilted slightly left, and his counterpart's was straight. Fred kept the few books he had organized by colors, and he preferred blondes; George organized by author, and liked brunettes.

Then there were the obvious contrasts. Like the fact that George was missing an ear, and Fred was dead.

George he had stopped looking in mirrors for a while, and had covered up the only one in his bedroom. Not only did he hate seeing the gaping hole in the side of his head, the one thing that really kept them different, he also hated seeing his twin's frown staring back at him. Fred had hated frowning. Always said that the wrinkles from doing so would clash horribly with the numerous laugh lines he was sure to have. The lines were on his twin's face too, but they hadn't been used in such a long time.

George had been with Fred for so long that being without him was physically painful. His mother cried because he had stopped eating for a while, going days at a time without a bite of food, locked in his and his twin's old bedroom. The one-eared man had always kept his side of the room tidier, because his brother never put anything away correctly. But whenever Arthur snuck up the stairs and opened the door to his boys' bedroom, it was always to find George sleeping in Fred's messy bed instead of his own.

He was the only one at the Burrow now. He had stopped sleeping in the apartment above Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes after discovering two nights after returning that the place just wasn't the same without his twin, and that he couldn't stay there. So he'd temporarily stay with his parents again, just until he was used to the idea of living without his oldest friend.

He sometimes made a joke to himself that if that was the requirement to leave, then George was going to be living with their presents forever. He'd laugh at this, then cry, because he knew that Fred would've laughed too. Bill and Charlie had been gone for years. Percy had moved into his own apartment in Ireland, and Ginny and Ron were with Harry and Hermione so constantly they might as well have lived with them. His parents were often away during the day, doing who knows what. Which left George. Alone for the first time in his life.

His mother sometimes would look at him and cry, and George knew it wasn't her fault that he reminded her of her lost son. Arthur would watch him too, but he didn't cry; he'd just get a sad look on his face and excuse himself to the garage to work on his muggle contraptions. But his parents weren't as bad as the people on the streets that he saw, who would look at him and smile, then shift their eyes to his left or right looking for his twin, giving him an apologetic look when they remembered what had happened. But he didn't want their sympathetic smiles. He just wanted him twin back.

Fred and George had always shared emotions as well. If one was happy, so was the other; if Fred was upset, his twin's heart hurt with him. That was the way it had always been, not even just because they were twins but because they cared enough about each other to pass on joy and not let one or the other suffer on their own. There had never been a time that one of them cried and his counterpart didnt join him.

But George cried alone now, because Fred wasn't able to.

Waking up was always hard, because for the first few seconds he was conscience he couldn't remember, and it was if nothing had changed; he'd roll over and his twin would be in the other bed, still sleeping or just waking up and one of them would tell a crappy joke to get the day going. But then George would roll onto his side ("the wrong side of the wrong bed," he liked to joke, and he could hear his twin's laugh), and his own bed would be empty, and he would remember. His eyes would fill with tears, and he'd shove his face into one of Fred's pillows and let the sobs wrack his body as he tried to forget again.

George sometimes thought the way he was feeling was a lot like being underwater for too long. He and his twin had been each others life vests, keeping the other afloat, and as long as they both were there, nothing bad would happen to the other. But he had let Fred slip into icy waters, and now he was facing the same; falling beneath the surface into a sea of loneliness and sadness, and he was very slowly drowning in it. His heart often felt like it was going to burst out of his chest, but whether it was from lack of oxygen or his brother, he didn't know.

It was now 11 months after his brother's death, and George Weasley was drunk for the first time.

He had left the house, unable to stand the silence. His parents were home, but they were both looking through old photo albums, pretending they weren't crying and losing themselves in memories. So he'd left the Burrow, apparated into a muggle town a few miles away, and just started walking until he couldn't anymore. He sat down on a bench, thinking about going home, when a low voice behind him had him turning his head.

"You look down, mate," the man said, breath reeking of something George couldn't identify. The man laughed, said "I've got something that could help youuuuuuu," and held a bottle in front of the redhead's face. An amber liquid sloshed around inside, and it reminded him of butterbeer. Something sweet couldn't hurt right now, could it? So he took the bottle from the stranger, who then collapsed on the bench, and the last Weasley twin apparated home, into his bedroom, to spend the rest of the night alone with this strange drink.

The entire contents of the bottle was gone in 10 minutes, and George couldn't decide if he wanted to cry or throw up. The drink had been nothing like butterbeer, and tasted very much alcoholic, not at all sweet like he had wanted. But nothing had been going the way he wanted, so he figured that a drink wouldn't be much different.

But now he regretted drinking the entire bottle. His head felt like there were elephants stomping around, and he couldn't quite see straight, and glared at the glass and threw it across the room, frowning as it shattered against the wall and made his headache that much worse. He stumbled over to the foot of Fred's bed, finally letting the tears escape, half of his body resting on the mattress, looking like a child in the midst of prayer. But he didn't send any words to the heavens, because he had tried so many times before, and nobody ever listened. _The angels are on vacation, Fred_, he thought to himself. _They must be in paradise_. But he couldn't bring himself to imagine his brother's laugh, so he buried his face in the blankets and wept.

A loud bang from the floor below made George leap to his feet, stumbling backwards and crashing into the mirror on the dresser, the one that he had covered so long ago. There was an ear-splitting crash, the tinkling sound of breaking glass, and a cry of pain, the latter coming from himself as he fell and landed with his palm on the fractured pieces. He swore and waved his wand aimlessly behind him, the room brightening slightly. He glared at the shards on the floor, then looked at his hand, assessing the damage. After brushing a few stray pieces away, he pointed his wand at his hand and muttered the spell to heal himself. He then turned to the damaged mirror to vanish it-

And stopped cold. His twin stared back at him.

When the mirror had broken, shattered onto the carpeted floor, the pieces that remained in the frame had cracked in such a way that George's missing ear was no longer a part of his reflection. The awful thing that had kept him and Fred from being the same, what had made them only _nearly_ identical when he was alive, was gone. Looking in the broken mirror now, he didn't see himself; in his drunken state, his mind only registered that the person in front of him looked the same as he did, and therefore it must be his twin. When George smiled, so did Fred. Their eyes were in the same sore and bloodshot state, and both of their hands trembled as they reached their fingers toward the other. "_Fred_," George whispered, as he made contact with his reflection.

When he touched cool, cracked glass instead of warm skin, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against it. He stared into his own tired red eyes, pointedly avoided looking at the spot where his ear had once been. If he angled his head just right, he could pretend that Fred was still here with him, sitting in the position they had always taken for comfort when they were younger, and that George had never needed more than right now. He hated it; sitting here, looking into a broken mirror, his own shattered reflection, and wishing someone else was staring back at him. His head hurt from the alcohol, and he closed his eyes as he kept his face against the glass.

But then someone spoke, and his head shot up so quickly that his vision blacked out for a moment, but he didn't care that his head was spinning. He didn't even care that it was impossible, because despite not hearing it for 11 months, George _knew_ that voice.

The vision of his brother in the mirror was a bit blurry, and that was the only way the young Weasley could tell this wasn't real. But he didn't care, because at least for the moment, Fred was _back_, and that was all that mattered.

"Hey, Georgie," his reflection said to him, his glass twin watching him with eyes that were surprisingly clear, so unlike George's own. The redhead shook his head once, twice, his counterpart doing the same, but while George kept his lips sealed, Fred's continued to move, forming words that he wasn't paying attention to, because what words could be important when his brother was here? His lost twin gave him a sad little smile, shaking his head. "What're you doin' to yourself, George?" But the mentioned Weasley couldn't speak, because the alcohol had made his tongue weigh a hundred pounds, so he thought the words instead, hoping Fred could hear them.

_I miss you so much_.

"I know," was the reply, "but that's no excuse. Nobody else is acting this way, they've all accepted it to some extent. Why can't you?"

_I can't, Fred_.

His reflection frowned at him. "You can. You just won't. Why won't you just let go?" His hand reached up to touch the glass, and George subconsciously mirrored the gesture, so the images on the glass were symmetrical. "Why won't you let me go?"

"Because you shouldn' be gone at all," George finally got out, words slurred and forced but there. "You shouldn' be gone. You were 'spose to stay with me fr'ever. Twins, Gred. 'S what we do."

Fred smiled at the nickname from so many years ago, but his eyes were still serious as they stared out of the glass. "I'm sorry, Georgie. Wasn't wholly my fault, you know, I didn't exactly choose to die."

George ignored the last statement, focused instead on the one before. "'Wholly,'" he repeated, pointing to his missing ear, the one that was still not pictured in the mirror. "'Wholly.' Was that a _pun_?" When his twin gave a grin, one that George hadn't seen in so long, not on his own face or otherwise, he couldn't help but chuckle. Not only at the terrible joke, but the absurdness of the entire situation. "A whole world of ear related humor," he said, quoting Fred from what seemed like ages ago, and for the first time in forever, George laughed. But this time it didn't make him break down, because he could really hear his twin laughing with him.

"But really, George," Fred interrupted, as the Weasley stopped his laughter long enough to listen to his dead brother. "You've got to stop, mate, look at yourself." George couldn't see himself, because Fred was in the way, but he wasn't about to tell him to move when he'd just gotten him back in his sight. So he just frowned and shook his head, and Fred asked him, "why not?"

George sighed. "We've always felt the same thing. But now you're gone n' I... I just don't feel anythin' anymore, Fred. Nothing. My... 'Hole' heart is empty," he ventured, hoping for a laugh from the mirror that only smiled at him.

"But I'm ok now, George. So you should be too."

George just closed his eyes and leaned on the mirror, no longer able to see his brother, but he could still hear him as he pressed his forehead against the glass again, trying to keep as much of himself touching the Fred his drunk mind had created as he could. He knew that his twin was right, that he'd spent far too long in this mindless state, and that the feelings he had would only get worse if he didn't stop. It was a few short weeks away from a year; a year alone, a year without his best friend in the world, a year without a single smile or laugh leaving him. But he knew that if he didn't stop this now, every year it would get harder and harder, and George wasn't sure he could take that.

So he took out his wand then and repaired the broken mirror, and was relieved when his reflection still had both ears. They might have only been nearly identical now, but that was alright with George as long as he knew that he wasn't alone. He could feel his eyes starting to close, exhaustion and the alcohol finally catching up to him. He laid his palm flat against the glass, and his reflection did the same. "I'm gonna miss you, Fred," he whispered, soft and broken like the glass had been moments before.

"I'll miss you too, Georgie," came the soft voice from the mirror, and the last Weasley twin fell asleep with the vision of his brother smiling still in his mind.

When George awoke the next morning, he was still on the floor by the mirror, with his hand pressed against the glass. His head hurt like hell, his eyes felt itchy, his mouth dry; but for the first time in nearly a year, his heart didn't feel weighed down with loneliness. He remembered what had happened last night, after he'd drank that liquid, how he'd seen his twin in the mirror. After taking some headache pills for the pounding in his head, and drinking plenty of water, he set about his day.

The first thing he did was make sure the mirror was fully repaired. Once all the little shards and fragments were back in place, George cleaned up Fred's bed, and made his own, intent on sleeping there from now on. He made sure the glass from the alcohol was gone entirely, because his mother would have killed him had she found out he'd been drinking, and then she wouldn't have had any twins left at all. He laughed at the last thought, because he knew that Fred would've too. With his room clean and his head clear, he apparated into the kitchen, appearing right behind his mother, who gave a shout and proceeded to hit him with a dish towel.

"Sorry, Mum," George said laughing. "Just thought it had been awhile since I gave you a proper scare. Good morning," he finished, pressing a small kiss to her cheek with a smile and reaching behind her for a piece of toast. Molly Weasley stared at half of her set of twins, mouth agape, before giving a cry of delight and wrapping her arms around him, holding him close.

"It's so good to see you smile again, George," she said into his ear, and he could hear her tears even in her joy. "I thought I was going to lose you too."

He pulled back, holding her at arms length and grinning. "Nah. I'll be moving back above the shop eventually, but you're not getting rid of me yet." When his mother smiled and gave him another slap with the dish towel, he grabbed one last slice of toast and headed for the door. "I'll be back in a bit, Mum. Just one more thing I have to do." And as Molly called out to Arthur to tell him that yes, George was actually _smiling_ again, the young man vanished, Apparating away with a loud pop.

He only went to the edge of their property, right where the woods began behind their house. He had just returned from their shop on Diagon Ally, stopping to pick up a few things. He now had a few fake flowers that squirt water and foul-smelling potions (not dangerous, thank you very much), because he knew that Fred would have liked those more than any plain old daisy he could've found on their land. He'd walked out here from the house, because he had a lot to say to the stone in the ground, and needed to plan it out before he actually opened his mouth.

When he finally reached the place he hadn't been in almost a year, he realized that his family couldn't have picked a better spot to bury his twin. Wildflowers stretched out from the forest, twisting and twining themselves around the stone marker, the small plaque on it still visible.

**_Fred Weasley_**

**_Beloved son, brother, and friend_**

**_"Death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back."_**

George twisted the stems of his fake flowers around the ones that were alive, so that anyone who came to close would either get a face full of water or potion; Percy would probably have a word or two with him when he came to visit next month. He grinned at the thought, because he hadn't played a prank on Percy for a long time, and he figured it was time to remedy that. Making a memo to himself to send his pompous brother something soon, George folded his long limbs and sat on the ground in front of his twin. Everything he'd planned to say had gone; every word he had rehearsed had fled his head. So George had to improvise, and it harder than expected.

"Fred," he started, then cursed himself, because he sounded so plain that he wanted to gag. He immediately changed his words. "Oh dearest brother of mine," he said dramatically, flopping onto his back in the soft grass. "Old wearer of my face, my nearly identical friend, it has been too long since I last looked upon you, and it shall be longer still." He frowned, but then laughed when the wind blew just right and made one of his flowers shoot water in his face. Wiping the liquid with the back of his hand, he sat back up, kneeling on one knee and placing a freckled hand on the stone.

"Fred," he started again, and this time he sounded more natural, more like himself. "I'm sure you know I miss you. With my 'hole' heart," he added, repeating his joke from the night before and smiling. "Always there for me, you were. Never told you how much I appreciated that." He paused, and looked up at the sky, the white clouds drifting aimlessly across the sky, and wondered if his brother was up there. _Probably raising hell for the angels_, he thought suddenly, and laughed out loud, glad that he and his brother had sounded so alike, because now George could hear Fred laughing with him. It was a nice feeling, being able to laugh, when all he had done was cry for months. But he was better now; he was ok, and his twin was too, and that was what mattered.

"Didn't tell you I loved you often enough, did I? I know we used to all the time when we were younger, but as we grew up we just lost the time and... I regret that." He allowed only a few tears to escape, not because he didn't want to cry, but because he wanted to spend as much time as he could making up for the smiles he had missed in the past year. "I do love you though, Fred. Like a brother," he laughed, and his head and heart felt so much lighter than they had in ages. "I promise I'll come visit more often. I'll bring new products from the shop, and I'll tell jokes to the flowers on your grave. Though I'm sure they won't appreciate them like you would." He let his fingers run over the letters on the silver plaque, and wished he had been there when they engraved it.

He carefully pulled out his wand, knowing his parents wouldn't mind if he added a couple words to his brother's stone. On the second line, between 'brother' and 'friend,' he added 'twin.'

When he was done, he stood, looking down at his brother, his twin, his best friend. "I've got a few ideas for some pranks for Percy. So I suppose this is goodbye for now. But I'll be back soon." He checked his flowers one last time, told a quick knock-knock joke, and started to walk away. He had only taken a few steps before coming back, kneeling in front of the stone once more and whispering, "_miss you, Fred_."

His laughter echoed across the field as he was hit in the face with a blast of putrid potion, and for the first time since his brother died, George Weasley was truly happy.


End file.
